The motor vehicle lock under discussion is applicable to all kinds of closure elements of a motor vehicle. These include in particular side doors, rear doors, tailgates, trunk lids or engine hoods. These closure elements can in principle also be designed in the manner of sliding doors.
A motor vehicle lock as above comprises an entire range of adjustable functional elements which adopt different positions depending on the functional state of the motor vehicle lock.
The mechanical functional state of a motor vehicle lock can, for example, relate to a locking state such as “locked” or “unlocked”. Depending on the locking state of the motor vehicle lock, the associated closure element can be opened by actuating an exterior door handle and/or an interior door handle. The functional state of a motor vehicle lock however also comprises the closing state of the motor vehicle lock. In the usual case in which the vehicle lock comprises a lock striker plate which, when the locking element executes a closing movement, engages with a lock striker or the like, the closing state comprises for example the position of the lock striker plate. In the case in which a safety catch is associated with the lock striker plate that fixes the lock striker plate into a locked position, the closing state also comprises the position of the safety catch.
The functional state of a motor vehicle lock can, in addition to the locking state and the closing state, also comprise other states that will not be considered in any further detail.
A detection device is regularly provided for detecting mechanical functional states of a motor vehicle lock. The known detection device (EP 2 333 208 A2), on which the invention is based, is fitted with a sensor arrangement consisting of two sensor switches which detect the position of two functional elements, here the lock striker plate and the safety catch. The detection device comprises two binary signal outputs through to which a reference potential is switched depending on the functional state, here the closing state of the motor vehicle lock. The resulting functional state of the motor vehicle lock is determined by means of a control arrangement from the logical state of the signal outputs.
A particularly fault-resistant detection of functional states of the motor vehicle lock is possible with the known detection device. There is a potential for optimization in respect of increasing the number of detectable functional states with the smallest possible number of binary signal outputs.